Georgia high court strikes down assisted suicide law

The Supreme Court of Georgia has struck down — on First Amendment grounds — a state law intended to prevent assisted suicide. Reversal of the law means that a physician and three others who were charged with helping a man take his own life in 2009 are free from prosecution.

The wording of the law was too broad, encompassing not just the act of assisting a suicide but also related and constitutionally protected speech acts, the state Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 6.